A Society (St. Vincent de Paul in Milwaukee) dedicated to works of mercy wants to build a thrift store for the rich in suburbs for millions of dollars with hope and wish of some money trickling down for the poor; the other chose is to build a thrift store, where it is needed, in neighborhood of persons in need and marginalized for little or no cost. The thrift store in suburbs does not make fiscal common sense and certainly does not fit the mission of the Society, for person to person contact with people in need.

This effort makes no sense but not many care. The poor and marginalized do not even know what is happening and leaders of the Society, mostly from the suburban do not want to know the facts that this 4–5 million dollar investment in the suburbs will bring harm to those most in need. This leaves a few of us who live in the city, do the works of mercy promoted by the Society and understand that no matter how you hope and wish “trickle-down economics” does not work and is actually ‘immoral,’ as the Holy Father of the Catholic Church, clearly states. Even if borrowing millions of dollars to serve the rich with a thrift store would work, it would not meet the mission of the Society or its Thrift store for direct person to person service to people in need.

The Society, as other groups like the Catholic Worker movement, understand that systematic change only comes with person to person service. If we try to compete with the ‘powers that be’ by money we will lose. When Jesus talked about how ‘blessed are the poor’ and doing the works of mercy. He made no mention of trying to make money to help the poor. The success of the Society worldwide has been because of the appeal and value of direct person to person contact. The failure of the Society, like in Milwaukee, has been in efforts to build a social agency and raise money to ‘help’ people in need. Being with people in need, like my wife and I did this morning with five home visits to the poorest of the poor brings blessings and grace. Donating or making money to help people in need may make people feel good but does not make for system change.

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